


Marked

by freezeveganpolice



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, endgame spoilers, i'm literally always a slut for soulmate tattoo AUs, midgame plot spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 06:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5195981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freezeveganpolice/pseuds/freezeveganpolice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are five years old when Mikleo first realizes their marks match. It is not till they are in their late teens, well on their way in their journey, that either he or Sorey realize what that means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marked

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for mildly sexy content near the end (no outright smut, just some pretty hardcore making out). Also, warning for Dezel dying. RIP angsty wind dad.
> 
> I do not own Tales of Zestiria, etc.

They are five years old when Mikleo first spots it: a small, deep blue design etched onto the palm of Sorey’s left hand. “You copied me,” he says with a frown, and pulls Sorey’s hand close to his face so that he can study it more closely. Purple eyes narrow over his rounded child’s cheeks. 

“What?” Sorey asks, utterly bewildered.

“That’s my mark,” Mikleo says, jabbing the mark with a small, chubby finger. “I’ve had it forever. See?” He turns his head to the side and pulls a lock of silver-blue hair out of the way so that Sorey can see. The same odd shape, a V tucked into a C with a line running through them both, is printed on the space where his jaw meets his right ear.

Sorey shakes his head and pulls his hand free. “This was here forever,” he says. “Same as you.”

Mikleo’s pale eyebrows rise. “Really?” Slowly, Sorey nods. “Always?” Mikleo clarifies, and again Sorey nods. “That’s weird,” Mikleo assesses, and then picks up the pens he was coloring with once again. 

*

Lailah notices that Mikleo is marked almost immediately. She finds it odd – soulmate marks are almost exclusively seen on humans – but says nothing.

Sorey, Mikleo, Lailah, and Alisha have been traveling together for a few weeks before Sorey’s glove gets knocked off his hand in battle. Alisha rushes to his side to pick it up, and it is then that Lailah notices the matching mark just at the base of Sorey’s thumb. 

Suddenly, she thinks, Mikleo’s reaction to Sorey’s rejection of him as a Sub Lord makes a lot more sense.

She smiles to herself, and for once finds it easy to smoothly change the subject when Alisha asks her what’s on her mind now.

*

“You don’t strike me as the tattoo type, Meebo,” Edna teases, and Mikleo scowls and resists the urge to smack her with his staff.

“It’s a birthmark,” he mutters, and Edna grins and twirls her umbrella over her shoulder. 

“Relax. I know what it is,” she says. “It’s pretty obvious.”

“Yeah. A birthmark,” Mikleo repeats as he shoots her a puzzled look, and one of Edna’s eyebrows lifts ever so slightly. 

“Is that all?” she asks drolly, and he groans, throws his hands up in the air, and stalks off to join Sorey at the dinner table. 

*

“You know,” Edna says to Dezel a few weeks later, “I don’t think that they know.”

Lailah looks up from her work; she is stitching up yet another hole in Sorey’s Shepherd cloak. “Know?” she echoes, and Edna rolls her eyes.

“Those two,” she says, nudging her head toward Sorey and Mikleo, who are standing all the way across the room from them with their heads bent together over the etchings on the walls of the Tintagel Ruins. When neither Lailah nor Dezel respond – other than Lailah cocking her head innocently to the side – Edna turns to Rose. “You know, right?” she asks, and Rose rolls over on her cot.

“Soulmates,” she says, “duh.”

“Oh,” says Lailah quietly, “that.”

“What makes you think they don’t know?” Dezel asks as he laces his hands behind his head and leans back against the wall. “They sure act like they know.”

Edna snorts. “I asked Meebo about his ‘tattoo’ and he got all defensive.”

“All the more reason to think-“ Rose interjects, but Edna cuts her off with a fierce glare.

“Not like that, like ‘it’s just a birthmark. Nothing more. Nothing less.’”

Lailah sets Sorey’s cloak down on the cot next to her and sighs dreamily. “It makes sense if you think about it, though,” she says, smiling. “They never saw the human world before a few months ago. Seraphim don’t generally have soulmates. We don’t have marks. They would have no way of knowing.”

“So, what, you think they just haven’t noticed they match?” Dezel scoffs.

“Or that they have noticed and somehow didn’t think, ‘Wow, that’s really weird?’” Rose chimes in. 

Lailah shrugs and watches Sorey and Mikleo, who are still avidly studying the ruins. Rose and Edna follow her gaze, and Rose stifles a giggle as Sorey jabs Mikleo in the ribs, initiating a brief tickle fight. Even across the room, they can all hear Mikleo’s musical chortling interspersed with short, mirthful yelps of “Hey!”

“Shouldn’t someone tell them?” Rose wonders aloud, but this time Lailah shakes her head.

“They do just fine on their own, don’t they?” she points out, and the matter is settled, for the time being.

*

There is nothing left of Dezel’s body after it happens.

It hadn’t occurred to Sorey that death meant complete nonexistence. He’s spent so much time around seraphim that he’s used to people he knows and loves ceasing to be corporeal. He’s traveled so much now, with Lailah and Dezel and Edna and Mikleo all riding along in his head, that he’s forgotten what it’s like not to have them all there.

When they all do return to him, he can feel the empty space. The silence is deafening, imposing even – none of the other seraphim speak the second they return to his vessel. He wonders if they can see a physical hole there, in whatever his vessel-space looks like. 

It was one thing to watch Dezel go. It’s another entirely to feel the lack of him, the space where he used to be, the space that none of them can fill no matter how hard they try.

Lailah is the first to come back out. “I’m going for a walk,” she says to Sorey as he lies on the inn bed, staring at the ceiling. When Sorey says nothing, she pulls free one of her papers, folds him an elegant paper crane, and then leaves with only the soft shadow of a sad smile on her lips.

Edna is next. “Me too,” she says. She doesn’t linger as much, just studies Sorey’s face for a moment and then walks out.

It is a few minutes before Mikleo materializes, seated on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t say much for a while, just pulls his knees to his chest and watches Sorey, who bites his lip and shuts his eyes as tightly as he can in an attempt to dam the tide of hot tears threatening to flood out.

“You can cry, you know,” he says. “You’re still a good Shepherd if you cry.” Sorey turns his head slightly to look at him, green eyes wet, but then quickly looks away to stare at the ceiling. “It’s okay. I’ll go out too,” Mikleo says.

He barely manages to stand before Sorey grabs him by the wrist. “No.”

“You want me to stay?”

“Please, Mikleo.”

Mikleo nods once, and then lowers himself back down onto the bed. Sorey scoots a few inches away, and Mikleo lies down beside him, rolling over to face him. “What does it feel like for you?” Mikleo asks. 

Sorey turns toward him. “Like an empty stomach,” he says. “That sounds dumb, but it’s like that. It’s empty, and it hurts.” Mikleo reaches over and takes hold of Sorey’s hand. The Shepherd’s glove is off, and the mark at the base of his thumb is as vivid as ever. Mikleo thumbs over it absently. “What is it like for you?” Sorey asks.

“It’s dark,” says Mikleo. “We can’t see each other in there, we just feel and hear each other, but it feels like a light has been put out.”

“Yeah,” Sorey agrees. “And I can’t light it again.”

“You can’t fix everything, Sorey,” Mikleo reminds him gently. “Not all people can be saved.” Sorey closes his eyes, bites his lip, and digs his head deeper into the pillow. The expression on his face is sheer anguish, and it almost pains Mikleo more to look at him than it does to think about Dezel. “Can you at least try to sleep?” Mikleo asks. “Rose is right – we do deserve rest.”

“I can try,” mumbles Sorey. “I just…. I keep thinking, what if it had been you, and I can’t, I can’t…”

Mikleo breathes out one cool breath and lays his hand on Sorey’s cheek. “I’ll be here,” he assures him, and watches Sorey in silence until he is sure his best friend is totally asleep before he relaxes a little. He’s seen Sorey sleep before – a lot, especially in the past few months as he’s recovered from battles and forming pacts with his Squires and Sub Lords – but he’s never been this close. 

Now, though – now, he can see every detail. He can see the few tiny, scabbed-over cuts on Sorey’s cheeks from a battle with a particularly vicious bird hellion. He can see the smudge of dirt on the tip of Sorey’s nose. He could count Sorey’s eyelashes, if he wanted. 

He doesn’t, though, just studies Sorey’s face and, once he’s satisfied that Sorey’s dreams are safe, closes his own eyes.

When Lailah returns about an hour later, the two boys are deep asleep, curled together atop the covers. Mikleo’s head is curved in, resting atop Sorey’s shoulder, and Sorey’s arm is wrapped around him so that the palm of his hand rests on Mikleo’s cheek and the tips of his fingers dip into his hair. 

*

“So,” Zaveid chuckles the next time they stop at an inn. “Where’d you get the tattoo?”

Mikleo turns to look at him and cocks an eyebrow. “Not you too,” he groans. “It’s a birthmark.”

“Whoa,” Zaveid says, holding his hands up in mock apology, and then pauses mid-movement. “Wait, you were a baby once? What?”

“Were you… not….” Mikleo starts, but Zaveid waves his hands dismissively. 

“So it’s a birthmark, huh,” he says, a sly smirk creeping onto his face. Mikleo folds his arms, exasperated, and prepares to deliver the same speech he did to Edna not too long ago, but then Zaveid asks, “Who’s got the matching one?”

Mikleo is completely taken aback, but Sorey is quick to come to his side. “I do,” he says, and pulls his glove down to display the matching design.

Zaveid stares back at them both, completely stunned. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, my god. I’m the only straight man here.” At the bar, Rose nearly spits out her drink, and Edna claps her heartily on the back a few times.

“What on earth are you talking-“ Mikleo starts weakly.

“Soulmate marks,” Edna calls over her shoulder from the bar. 

Mikleo can feel his face growing hot, and he sees that Sorey’s cheeks have gone from a pleasant tan to a brilliant shade of red. He’s sure that his own face must be similarly flushed, and he wishes he weren’t quite so pale. “S-soulmates?” Sorey stutters.

“Soulmates,” Zaveid says. “Wait, you guys didn’t know?”

In unison, Sorey and Mikleo shake their heads violently, chestnut and silver hair whipping back and forth. Sorey’s earrings click and jingle with every shake until finally the two still, faces red and eyes turned down toward the ground.

“I mean, fine, more babes for me, but…” Zaveid starts, and Lailah appears at his side and tugs him away by the arm.

“I think,” she says with a small smile, “it’s time for us to take a walk.” She glances once over her shoulder, and then calls in a sickly-sweet voice for Edna and Rose to follow. Rose takes a moment to apologize profusely to the bartender for the small scene the Shepherd’s just created – “He’s really not talking to himself, promise,” she says, though it’s only a small assurance – and then dashes out after the other seraphim.

Mikleo and Sorey don’t look at each other, just keep their eyes trained on the floor. Both boys’ fists are clenched at their sides, shoulders shaking with tension. “We should… not do this here,” Mikleo says at last, and Sorey nods in agreement. They make their way to Sorey’s room in the back, where Sorey sits on the bed, still staring at the floor. Mikleo hesitates a moment, then sits next to him and follows his gaze down to the plain, slightly ragged red rug on the floor. “It’s a nice rug,” he starts to say, right as Sorey says: “It kind of makes sense if you think about it.”

“What?” they both say, and their eyes shoot up and meet.

“You first,” Mikleo cuts in before Sorey can tell him to go first, even though Mikleo is sure he knows what he heard.

“I… I said it kind of makes sense,” Sorey repeats. “I mean, we… you…” Words totally fail him. “I mean, I don’t even know what this means, but it feels like it makes sense,” he finishes lamely.

“I’ve read about it,” Mikleo says slowly. “Two humans, born with matching marks. They spend their lives trying to find each other, trying to find their match, like they’re two halves who need to make a whole. Not all humans have them, apparently. But I thought it was fiction, and I thought, since I’m a seraph, it was probably just coincidence anyway, so…”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Sorey asks, utterly incredulous. 

“I thought it was a fairy tale!” Mikleo insists. “Even though it did make me feel… justified.”

“Justified? Justified in what?”

Mikleo bites his lip and looks away. “It’s not important,” he lies. 

Sorey scoots closer to him and grabs him by the shoulders, turning Mikleo so that his face is toward Sorey’s. “Justified how?” he repeats.

“You know,” Mikleo says sheepishly.

Sorey does, if he’s being honest, but he’d like to hear it said anyway, so he shakes his head, causing his earrings to jingle once again. Mikleo bites his lip even harder, and Sorey finds his eyes drawn to the motion, to the very shape of Mikleo’s lips, but he forces himself to look back into the seraph’s purple eyes. It’s not much of a challenge – they’ve always held eye contact in conversations before, and Sorey never feels like he’s done finding new things, shining flecks of silver, in Mikleo’s irises.

“In liking you,” Mikleo says. “I… like you.”

“I like you too,” Sorey says with a smile.

“No, I mean like-“

“I know what you mean,” Sorey interrupts him, grinning, and Mikleo’s cheeks blush fuchsia once again. 

“And you still made me say it,” he mutters. “Asshole.”

“I’m the same way, if it helps,” Sorey tells him, though he can’t keep the smile off his face now. 

“It does, kinda,” Mikleo mumbles, but punches Sorey lightly in the shoulder. “You’re still an asshole, though.”

*

They don’t talk about it much after that, and the others don’t mention it either. They’re too busy fighting hellions, running from place to place across the continent in search of Heldalf and then Mayvin and then Heldalf again. They fight a dragon, and win, as much as Sorey is willing to call a kill a win. Mikleo and Sorey are armatized for almost the whole fight, feeling the strange warmth that comes from sharing energy in one body, the fluidity that accompanies their every movement, from drawing the bowstring to dancing across the battlefield. 

It isn’t until the dragon has been felled, and Rolance and Hyland set to go into peace talks, that Mikleo takes off to find some time alone in Lastonbell.

It really does make sense, once he thinks about it. He’s felt differently about Sorey for a while now – probably before they left Elysia – though he didn’t have any way to describe it until now. He’d thought for a little while that maybe he just thought of Sorey in a different way from other people because he’d known him longer, but then he’d found himself gazing at him too long, watching his every move, and feeling strange twinges of jealousy whenever Sorey armatized with one of the other seraphim. 

And now he knows it’s more than just him, having stupid feelings that occupy far too many of his thoughts. It’s something more, even, than simply requited feelings.

Soulmates. 

It’s a lot for him to think about, and it’s certainly not what he should be focused on, with the battle to come. But try as he might to refocus his thoughts, he cannot succeed.

“It’s getting late,” he hears from behind him, and for a second he wonders how Sorey found him – he’s not immediately visible from Lastonbell’s Inn. 

“Yeah,” Mikleo agrees. “You should get some rest.”

“You too,” Sorey says, but doesn’t beckon for him to follow back to the inn. Instead, he comes to stand beside him. When Mikleo smirks at him and elbows him in the ribs, he adds, “I know you don’t need to, I just think it’s good for you. And… Iliketowatchyousleep.” The last sentence is rushed, and Mikleo, bemused, nudges him once again.

“Care to run that by me again?”

“You’rereallycutewhenyousleep,” Sorey mumbles, equally quickly.

Mikleo grins, marveling at the way the color spreads across Sorey’s cheeks. He kind of wants to kiss them and see if that makes them even pinker, but he pushes the thought away. “You’re not,” he teases instead, “you drool.”

Sorey’s face falls just a little, and Mikleo smiles at him, more softly now.

“I’m kidding, you know,” he says. “You’re… really wonderful, actually.”

As Mikleo might have guessed, Sorey blushes even harder, and turns to look away, leaning against the park wall to look over Lastonbell. “It’s all wonderful,” he says slowly. “I’m going to miss it.”

Mikleo closes his eyes. He’d been dreading this moment, where Sorey would confirm his worst fears: he would have to do something completely, totally drastic in order to defeat Heldalf. When Sorey doesn’t continue, he decides not to press him for now. “Lots of stars out tonight,” he says instead, turning so that he can lean backwards against the wall and gaze up at the sky.

“Mm.” Sorey turns to lean back as well, so that they stand shoulder-to-shoulder, their pinkies brushing lightly against each other as they stare up at the millions of brilliant stars that shine in the sky over Rolance. 

“I read once that there are as many emotions as there are stars in the sky,” Mikleo says. He doesn’t mention that he’s sure he’s felt most of them and that he reserved the ones that burned brightest for his feelings for Sorey.

“I’m sure there are,” Sorey says sincerely, and Mikleo senses that Sorey’s eyes are no longer on the heavens. He glances sideways, and up slightly, even now slightly irritated by the few inches that Sorey has on him. 

“Sorey,” he whispers.

“I’m going to miss you,” Sorey says, and leans in and presses his lips to Mikleo’s forehead. Mikleo reaches down, gently takes Sorey’s hand in his, and pulls off the glove. The mark is clear on Sorey’s palm, the same deep blue as the night sky. 

“It looks like our bow,” Mikleo realizes. “It’s a bow and arrow.”

Sorey doesn’t look at his own hand, but instead peers around the side to where Mikleo’s mark is at the base of his jaw. “It does, doesn’t it?” He traces the mark lightly with one finger, and Mikleo shivers a little despite the warmth of the evening. “Soulmates,” Sorey breathes. “I guess all of this was fated.”

“Then the end must be fated too,” Mikleo sighs, drawing the logical conclusion. “Whatever happens is meant to happen.” When Sorey only nods, Mikleo draws in a deep breath and looks him in the eye. “Sorey. What do you intend to do?”

He hesitates for a moment, and then turns to look back up at the stars. “Maotelus’s vessel is the very land beneath us,” he says. “If I can purify Maotelus, I can become his vessel temporarily and aid him as he spreads his blessing once again.” He looks wistfully back down at Mikleo. “I’ll have to sleep for a long time, though. But I think you knew that.”

“You think you might never wake up,” Mikleo realizes. Sorey sets his jaw, and Mikleo nods firmly. “You will. And I’ll be there. I’ll wait for you.”

“Mik…”

“As long as it takes,” Mikleo says, and he’s sure he’s never said anything with such conviction in his life. Still, though, his throat feels eerily dry as he gazes back up at Sorey. 

“I want to use the time I have now, though,” Sorey says after a long silence, otherwise interrupted only by the light summer breeze. “There are things I want to do before I sleep.” Mikleo’s lips part, partially in surprise and partially in expectation of what comes next. “Like those crucibles, for one thing, and the Forton sisters…”

“You’re completely useless, Sorey,” Mikleo sighs, and pulls Sorey’s head down so that he can kiss him. Some part of him that doubts the very idea of ‘soulmates’ half-expects Sorey to pull back, but then Sorey returns the kiss just as fiercely. Mikleo keeps one arm about Sorey’s neck but curls the other around his waist. He feels Sorey’s hands come up to cup his face, and then they start to explore more. Sorey’s tongue flicks into his mouth, over his teeth, and Mikleo nips lightly at Sorey’s lower lip. He is delighted, and yet slightly surprised, to hear a low moan growl its way out, seemingly from the depths of Sorey’s chest. Mikleo hadn’t known such noises were possible. He goes to try again, pleased at the pressure he can feel near his hips, but this time Sorey does withdraw.

“We ought to go inside,” he says, and Mikleo has to clench his fingers into Sorey’s clothing to keep from pulling him back in again. “Before someone sees me kissing the air,” Sorey adds hastily. “Because I-“ He doesn’t manage to finish that last sentence, since his voices drifts upwards and away as Mikleo gives in and this time presses his lips to the side of Sorey’s neck. This time the moan is more high-pitched, and Mikleo tugs lightly at the skin of Sorey’s neck. “R-really… need to go… inside,” Sorey squeaks desperately, and Mikleo runs his eyes up and down the length of Sorey’s body.

“Mm-hmm,” he agrees, and they do.

*

It is another few weeks of traveling and fighting before they finally make it to Camlann. Sorey wasn’t lying about his unfinished business – he really did want to avenge the murdered children and purify the Forton sisters, as well as the crucibles. He did insist on staying at every inn they passed, though. Edna, Lailah, Rose, and Zaveid certainly knew why, though none of them were crass enough to comment on it – at least not to Sorey or Mikleo’s faces.

It wasn’t like they couldn’t hear, though. Sorey was very vocal.

Still, as they come to the entrance of Camlann, they all wonder if Sorey will be able to fire his final seraph. If, when it comes down to it, Sorey will willingly send Mikleo to blast Heldalf with his whole spirit. 

They need not have worried. Not that any of them can watch, after they’ve been fired at the monstrous dragon-lion, but Sorey doesn’t hesitate as he armatizes with Mikleo for the last time and starts to pull back the trigger. 

He feels an overwhelming swell of what he can only call love as he fires the pistol and pure blue light rushes forth. Heldalf collapses before him, now only a man, and Sorey swallows back tears from the end of the fight until he drives his sword through Heldalf’s chest.

At long last, he can rest.

*

When Sorey awakens, he remembers almost nothing.

He knows his own name. He knows that he does not look the way he once did – his skin is softer, smoother, and his hair is long and pale, almost silver-blonde. He knows that his veins did not always course with fire like they do now, and he knows that he once felt hunger and drowsiness where now he does not.

He knows that the deep blue mark at the base of his thumb is the same as it always has been, though. Like a bow and arrow, he thinks, and surveys his surroundings.

He does not remember what this place looked like before he went to sleep, all those hundreds of years ago. For it has been several hundred years, of that he is sure, although he couldn’t say how many hundreds. Wherever he is, it’s a seemingly endless field of flowers in every shade imaginable. They’re mostly yellow, but some are purple, some red, and some are a pale bluish-white.

Sorey stops to smell one of those peculiar blue-white flowers, and a face flashes before him in his mind’s eye: a pointed chin, high cheekbones, violet eyes and cropped silver hair. He freezes, grasping desperately at what he knows must be a memory, but it is gone.

But he does know something else now: he needs to go west. Absently, he runs his right thumb over the mark on his left hand.

Sorey has to find him. If only he could remember his name.

*

It’s a few days before Sorey feels he’s reached a place where he can stop. He’s been traveling nonstop, marveling at how he no longer tires. There aren’t any hellions to fight, and though he’s run into a few people who could see him, none have talked with him for long.

Now, though – now he stands at the ivy-covered entrance to some ruins, both totally new and achingly familiar. He wonders if his past self might have traveled them before, or if he’d just wanted to and never gotten around to it.

Through a hole in the ruins’ outer wall, he spots a flash of silver. Something clutches and burns in his chest, and he knows he’s made it home.

He runs the rest of the way, tearing around corners, for once paying little heed to the intricate, ancient designs partially hidden by the climbing plants on the walls. His footsteps echo through the stony corridors, sending motes of dust into the air.

He slows down as he passes into a courtyard with a simply adorned pillar at its center.

And there he is, silver hair long, luscious and wavy, pulled back into a ponytail. Sorey watches as he lays a slender hand on the blue stone on the pillar, and takes one step forward, all set to break into a run again when the ground starts to shake. 

The man ahead of him turns to look over his shoulder at the ground, hair flying out of the way, and Sorey’s eyes catch on the matching mark on his jaw just as the ground starts to crumble beneath him. Sorey doesn’t think then, just leaps and catches him by the wrist.

Purple eyes turn up toward him, and a myriad of expressions cross the man’s face in a matter of seconds: his pale brows furrow in confusion, his mouth opens in a small “o” of disbelief, and then his cheeks lift and his lips curve upward and outward in a huge grin. “Sorey!” he gasps breathlessly, and reaches up to grab hold of Sorey’s arm with his other arm. 

It doesn’t take long for Sorey to haul him up. The pair sit next to the newly-opened hole in the ground, each looking at the other in absolute wonder. 

He is older, Sorey knows, even though he hardly remembers, even though he can’t even put a name to the face before him. But he knows that the shoulders are broader, the jaw stronger, the hair longer. He may even be taller, though it’s difficult for Sorey to tell because they’re sitting. The eyes are the same though, that much he is sure of: twin violet lights, reflecting silver-gold light from the sun as it filters in through holes in the ruined ceiling. And the mark, of course – the abstract bow-and-arrow on his jaw, which exactly matches his own. He remembers what that means.

Memories stir and swirl as Sorey studies him – childhood tumbles through grass fields outside Elysia, nights of reading in close proximity by candlelight, a few careful kisses in the shade of trees just outside of towns, moans of Mikleo’s name in careful darkness, Mikleo, Mikleo, Mik – 

“Mikleo,” Sorey says suddenly. The other man meets his eyes sharply, drawing his gaze abruptly away from Sorey’s lips. 

“Sorey,” Mikleo echoes. “You…” He can’t finish.

Sorey can feel everything, every memory, rushing at him at once as he continues to look at Mikleo. “You waited,” he says.

“Of course,” Mikleo scoffs. “What else would I have done?”

“It’s been-“

“Nearly five hundred years,” Mikleo cuts him off. “Of course I waited. I told you – as long as it takes.”

A hot, fiery feeling fills Sorey’s chest so much he feels set to burst. Still his memories of life with Mikleo are fluttering by at the speed of light, and though he isn’t sure he remembers how to start a kiss –

Mikleo leans forward, grabs him by the face, and kisses him fervently, and oh, god, Sorey definitely does remember how to kiss. He remembers every curve of Mikleo’s lips, every place to bite, everywhere to flick his tongue. He remembers that kissing the mark on Mikleo’s jaw makes him shiver, that kissing down his neck makes him downright shudder. He remembers the way Mikleo’s back arches if he runs his hands down and over his ribs, the way his hips roll when Sorey’s fingers ghost over his hipbones.

But now, here, in these ruins, is not the time nor the place. Sorey pulls back, and moves to run his fingers through Mikleo’s long hair, but pauses as his hand passes their matching marks.

Soulmates, a deep voice mutters in his mind, a dim memory, and he presses his palm to Mikleo’s jaw.

It’s warm, and he swears he can feel a faint spark of literal electricity between his skin and Mikleo’s. Even without a kiss, Mikleo’s body quakes a little, and the corners of his mouth turn up in a contented smile. “I’m glad you’re home, Sorey,” he says, even though they’re miles and miles from Elysia, and Sorey understands exactly what he means.

**Author's Note:**

> I uh... did not intend for this to be this long. I hecked up. I hecked up so bad. I thought this would be like 1000 words tops. I'm so sorry.


End file.
